Bitter Orange Crostata
by mandrake-o
Summary: In which Lisa attempts to comfort Dean with dessert. Or how a recipe for "Bitter Orange Crostata" ended up on the Braedens' corkboard. Lost year fic based on a cap from 6x01 Exile on Main St.


**Bitter Orange Crostata  
**

**Author's Note: **Check my livejournal (I'm mandraco) for the pic of the corkboard with the recipe. There's also a link to the recipe itself.

x X X x

Dean's falling apart at the seams and it's all Lisa can do to keep him together. She lets him drink as long as he's nowhere near Ben. She stays up with him the nights he can't sleep. She listens when he can bring himself to speak. She makes sure to greet him with a smile every time she sees him. And she holds him the night he puts the last book away and stops looking for a way to save his brother. But she knows the only thing that can truly bring him back to life is gone. So she improvises.

Lisa's good at improvising. There had never been much money in the house growing up and her parents hadn't exactly been pleased when she'd decided to have Ben all on her own so she's long used to stretching a dollar. It's a skill she still uses today, even with her yoga business thriving. Ben eats enough for two grown men and wears through his clothes like they're made of tissue paper. And now there's Dean. Having his construction job helps, but it's mostly under the table stuff and there are some days when Dean just can't get out of bed. And on those days, he blows whatever he's earned on booze.

If there's one thing Lisa remembers from the weekend she met Dean (besides the impossible to forget sex), it's his love of food. In particular she remembers when they paused to put on clothes for a very late lunch and the way his eyes lit up at dessert. Pie, Lisa remembers. Warm apple pie.

Lisa's not a health freak, but being a yoga instructor goes hand in hand with trying to lead a healthier lifestyle, so for the most part she stays away from processed foods. A lot more of them have snuck their way into the house with Dean, to Ben's delight, but Lisa's not going to buy a pie from the store while she still has two hands. She's not the best baker in the world; she doesn't have the patience for the nuances, but it always comes out edible. Most days she'll blame it on the oven, but they've moved since Dean arrived and this new oven is an untested one. Maybe this oven will make the pie perfect.

Lisa rolls the crust out too thin and it's full of holes, but she patches it over and the top looks decent enough. The pie comes out of the oven an even golden brown and even she's looking forward to dessert.

x x x

Lisa pulls the finished pie out after the plates are cleared. Ben is almost giddy with excitement and that sidetracks her before she can focus on Dean. He's smiling the way he does most of the time, with no feeling behind it. He's focused on trying to mimic Ben's enthusiasm and Lisa realises she's completely miscalculated. With pie being his favourite food, it's probably locked up with a multitude of good memories of his brother, even his mother and his father. She mentally slaps herself for her stupidity. She looks at the pie and thinks that the second she puts a fragment of that golden brown pastry into her mouth it's going to turn to ashes.

"I was just testing out the oven," she says as she cuts Ben a slice. For the sake of appearances, they're all going to have to eat some pie but she makes sure that the slices she cuts for herself and Dean are both smaller than Ben's. Luckily Ben doesn't notice that Dean leaves most of his slice behind and she sweeps him upstairs before he can ask for seconds and prolong the ordeal.

When Lisa gets back downstairs after arguing with Ben about how many games he can play on his Xbox before bed, the kitchen is clean, the pie back in the oven, and Dean is outside with a fifth of whisky. Lisa cuts a slice of the pie for Ben's lunch tomorrow, then tosses the rest of the pie in the trash. She scours the pie plate, washing and drying it, and putting it away. She grabs a glass and some ice, and she goes outside to join Dean. They don't talk about it, but seeing Dean like this is enough to steel her resolve. She's going to find a way to make him happy again.

x x x

Lisa tries cake next. Vanilla first, because vanilla cake is nobody's favourite. It doesn't get a negative reaction, but it's clear it's not something that Dean really likes. Chocolate cake is next. He likes it better (and together they find a few new uses for leftover chocolate icing), but there's no spark in his eyes. It seems this project is going to last a while. At least Ben's happier, even if she's sure there are calories clinging to her thighs that yoga can't remove and Dean's smile is a façade. She misses the days when all it took was dessert to put a smile on her face.

Lisa knows she's over-simplifying things. She knows this obsession with finding the perfect recipe doesn't have so much to do with Dean and is more her own way of coping with her own helplessness in light of his situation. It's not exactly healthy, but it's not exactly hurting, either. And part of her still thinks there will be that one thing that makes him remember that there are other things in the world still worth living for. He deserves to be happy.

It's a little worrying that it seems to have rubbed off on Ben. He comes home every day with a new joke to try out. He says he wants to be a comedian when he grows up, but even Dean can see that Ben idolises Dean too much for that to be his real goal in life. Dean tries his best to laugh every time. And when he can't, he tries to make fun of the joke itself, but Ben never gets the reaction he's really going for. Everyone's heart breaks a little when the joke's punchline has been delivered.

x x x

Strawberry shortcake doesn't get a reaction other than a feeble joke about the doll. Dean stares at the pavlova as though it doesn't make sense. Pudding is next. Lisa can barely get Ben out of the room before Dean starts doing obscene things with it. It's the texture that gets him going, not the flavour itself, so though Lisa saves the recipe, she keeps looking. She tries cheesecake. Both baked and refrigerated. After that she incorporates more cardio into her routine. She considers it a mild success because Dean joins her for a jog one day, too. But it's not worth the bloated feeling, so she keeps looking.

For a second, Lisa thinks she's hit jackpot with the Boston cream pie. It's not a pie, after all, and she hopes it will give him the good feelings and leave the bad ones aside. The Boston cream pie does the exact opposite. Dean almost cries into his plate. Lisa avoids everything with 'pie' in the name after that. She crosses pineapple desserts off the list too, just in case. Dean doesn't seem to like pineapple, anyway.

x x x

The internet is Lisa's friend throughout all of this. With all the searches on dessert and the random websites she's visited over the past few months, she's surprised her laptop hasn't locked up from viruses. She decides it's the universe's way of telling her not to give up yet. That there is something more out there for him.

But Lisa thinks she might have found the literal end of the internet because she has no more ideas the day she comes home and finds Dean on the couch with a jar of marmalade and a spoon. "What are you eating?" she asks.

Dean looks up like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar. Lisa's more amused than concerned, though. "You've got like ten jars of this stuff," he says. And probably nothing else in the pantry, now that she thinks about it. They're overdue for another trip to the grocery store.

"My parents brought it back from Scotland as a souvenir. How can you eat that? It's so bitter." She makes a face.

Dean shrugs and sticks his spoon back into the jar. His tongue curls around the spoon and he smirks at her. She warms and doesn't spare a thought for Ben upstairs before stepping forward and kissing Dean. The marmalade is bitter, but mingled with the taste of Dean, Lisa thinks she could grow to enjoy eating it. She straddles his lap and he moves to embrace her.

"It's not so bad," she says, leaning forward to lick a little from the corner of his mouth.

Dean actually laughs and Lisa is suddenly thankful for the ten jars of marmalade she'd kept out of politeness. She kisses him again. For this, she could grow to love marmalade. Bitterness and all.

x x x

Lisa feels like the answer is at her fingertips, but she can't just let Dean eat jars of marmalade. It doesn't sit right with the part of her that insists that meals always be eaten at the dinner table. So she goes online and looks for marmalade recipes. Meanwhile they eat it with vanilla ice cream, and on pancakes. Ben still can't stand the bitterness by itself, but warmed and drizzled over a slice of pound cake he eats it so fast she's sure he can't taste it.

Then Lisa finds the perfect recipe. She has to look up what a crostata is first, once she sees the recipe and looks at the picture. Wikipedia tells her it's a kind of pie and when Lisa reads through the recipe, she understands.

It's slightly easier to make than an apple pie and Lisa can't help but taste a piece of the unbaked crust, even knowing it's full of raw egg yolks. It's delicious and Lisa can't wait until it's cooked. She just has a good feeling about this. All she has to do is remember to leave out the word pie.

x x x

Dean and Ben are used to her weird desserts by now. But when she puts the crostata in front of them, they stare at it as though they've never seen pastry before in their lives.

"Is that marmalade?" Ben asks, having consumed so much of it in the past week that he's likely to stop refusing it in all forms very soon. Lisa doesn't mind because this thing is full of sugar and butter and cholesterol-full egg yolks, and this is for Dean.

"It smells good," says Dean, but Lisa can tell he's not sure about it. She'll just have to change his mind.

She cuts all three of them generous slices. She's absolutely certain that this is going to be her favourite way to eat marmalade from now on. Just this once she adds a dollop of sweetened whipped cream on top of each slice.

"Aren't you going to tell us what this is?" Dean asks, turning the plate to and fro.

"It's a bitter orange crostata," says Lisa, taking her fork and cutting the tip off her piece. She smiles as she savours it. It's perfect. It's like all the practice she got in baking was for this one dessert.

Ben makes a face.

"It's only bitter and orange from the marmalade," says Lisa, not even looking up and knowing the face is there.

The boy makes sure to cover his first bite with more cream than necessary, but he goes back for a second bite instead of miming gagging and making disgusted noises.

Lisa watches as Dean takes his first bite. It's involuntary, but Lisa can see the corners of his mouth turn up. His next bite is bigger, and the whole slice is gone before Lisa puts a third bite into her mouth.

"This is good, Lise," he says as he helps himself to a second slice. It's the first time he's done that, just reached for the serving dish as though he has every right to touch it. It's exactly the reaction she's been looking for this whole time. That's what this whole exercise has been about, she thinks. It's about making Dean feel at home, welcome, less like an intruder.

Lisa can't help smiling into her next forkful of crosata. If it had just been her and Ben, Lisa would have stopped baking after the chocolate cake, definitely after the Boston cream pie, but watching Dean devour his crostata, Lisa can't help but think this is the best recipe in the world. No ifs and buts about it.

Ben seems to sense something is different about the atmosphere at the table and is unsure about it. It's obvious he doesn't find the crostata all that delicious.

"I read a riddle in a book today," he says.

"Oh yeah?" asks Dean, distracted by his third slice.

"Yup," says Ben and Dean looks up. "If I give you thirteen sugar cubes and two cups of coffee, can you divide the sugar between the two cups so that they each contain an odd number of sugar cubes?"

Dean's actually thinking about it, chewing absently. Lisa already knows this one, so she's keeping quiet. But she feels just as eager as Ben to see if Dean will get the answer. If he'll find the joke funny.

"That's impossible," says Dean.

"It isn't!" says Ben with a knowing smile. "Do you give up?"

Dean looks down at his bare plate. "I think I might need more food for thought."

Lisa can't refuse him another slice and there are two left in the dish. "But that's your last one," she says.

Dean pouts like a child and it's a struggle for Lisa to keep the serious mom frown on her face.

"Come on, Dean," says Ben. "Guess!"

Dean eats his last slice slowly. Whether he's savouring it, or discovering that his stomach isn't bottomless, Lisa doesn't know, but she can tell he is exaggerating it to get Ben all strung out.

"I should've given you a time limit," says Ben, with both elbows on the table.

"All right, all right," says Dean, waving his fork like a flag of surrender. "I give up. How do you do it?"

"You put one cube of sugar in the first one," says Ben. "And that's an odd number."

"And put twelve in the second one?" says Dean, his forehead creasing.

"Yes!" says Ben. "Isn't twelve sugar cubes an odd number to put in a cup of coffee?"

Dean drops his fork on his plate and laughs. He throws his head back and lets his laughter consume his whole body. Then he grabs for Ben and gives him a noogie. Ben frowns, but when Dean drops his hand and hugs him around the shoulders, Ben can't keep from grinning like he just won a trip to Disneyland. It's the most perfect ending to a meal that Lisa can imagine.

They clean up after dinner together to the soundtrack of Ben's best and worst knock-knock jokes of all time. Dean and Lisa take turns asking "Who's there?" and Ben forgets half of the punchlines. Dean tries to sneak more bites from the crostata, and Lisa smacks his hands away, promising that if he doesn't eat all the marmalade straight out of the jar she'll bake another one someday.

Lisa pins the recipe on the corner of the corkboard in the kitchen beside a picture of herself and Ben. There's a lot of empty space on it. A lot of room for more photos, and she resolves to dig out the camera and get some photos printed. Dean's here to stay. It's time the house actually looks like it.

x X X x

A/N: I haven't actually tried that recipe so no guarantees that it tastes as good as Dean and Lisa seem to think it does.


End file.
